My religious friend is homophobic but acts very gay towards me and loves touching me

Sounds like he has some repressed gay emotions there...

 

I've never seen a case of "gay closeted religious guy" on this forum more straightforward than this. 100% he's into dudes and feels bad about it because of the religion stuff. Not leaving his house in June is off the charts level of denial, apparently he's afraid there's a 0.0000000000001% chance he'll somehow accidentally stumble into a gay parade and be outed.

 

@Adymoe The first thing that came to my mind after reading your post is, are you ok being his friend even after what he's done to you? Touching you and talking to you the way he did without your permission and/or without any consideration for your feelings is definitely not ok. It doesn't matter if he's your friend, no one should be able to do anything without permission. So I think you need to go over how YOU feel about all of this. That's more important and should be a priority before questioning/wondering if your friend is homophobic, a closet LGBTQ+ who is in denial or if his so-called (Since I don't know a lot about him) homophobia will ruin your friendship. IMHO (I may be wrong) his behavior, based on what you described, may have already caused unconscious cracks in your friendship.

I could be very wrong about this. But I'm going by what you told us about his behavior. He could very well be a great gay in a lot of other ways, but his behavior towards you definitely rubbed me the wrong way just reading about it. Please do comment on this and provide us with other details in case I've read what you're written the wrong way. Take care.

 

I always have issues when people say this. The sexual assault stuff is thrown around too easily. There is a difference between aggressive flirting and assault. Nobody robotically asks permission every single time they do anything physical or flirty, doing that would totally kill the vibe and makes the person seem scared or lacking confidence.

Saying that if a person welcomes it then it's ok but if it makes them uncomfortable it's not makes no sense. How is the one doing it supposed to be held to a double standard like that when they have no idea whether the person will like it or not until they do it. It should be perfectly fine unless the person actually says they don't like it and to stop, because until they do there's no way to know they don't like it.

Gay guys are much more obvious about liking flirting and flirt back way faster to be fair, but in my experience girls in their teens and 20's will never, ever, actually say they want the guy to make a move or give permission for anything even if they're desperately hoping he does on the inside, because it makes them feel "easy" if they explicitly agree to it. The few signals they do give, are way too subtle for the mostly oblivious average guy to notice.

I don't think I've ever actually asked permission to say someone's hot, kiss them or touch them since like 7th grade. You just read their body language, hope you're interpreting it correctly, and go for it, not kill the mood by asking. I've been right about 95% of the time that they were into it also, but it's not assault to try and get it wrong the first time if they didn't say not to beforehand.

 

What you wrote makes sense, but my views on this topic are heavily jaded due to things I've seen happen to other guys that were completely unfair. I've personally witnessed multiple times that "sexual assault" is a completely meaningless description that could describe just about anything flirting related which is blown far out of proportion in court.

The biggest example: In high school, a friend of mine was flirting with a girl for like an hour at a party and she was into it. The three of us got into a car, and he reached out to hold her hand. They held hands for like 2 minutes and then we dropped her off. She apparently told her parents, who called the police, and got him charged with sexual assault, battery, and crimes against a minor (he was 18, she was 17). It went to court, and the judge's ruling made my friend a registered sex offender for life. For holding hands for two minutes with a girl who had been flirting with him for an hour and got in the car with him. I literally saw it, he did absolutely nothing wrong. Because of that ruling, he lost his job working at an extremely famous TV chef's personal restaurant with him that everyone here would recognize if I said the name.

He then spiraled into depression, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and due to already permanently being branded a child rapist and sex offender in everyone's minds the second they met him, started doing cocaine and other drugs hardcore to cope with the world hating him and his life being ruined. That combined with already being a sex offender forever anyway which of course makes ever being in a relationship impossible for life, because who would ever date a sex offender, caused him to start legitimately raping people as young as 13 while he was now in his 20's. He's been to prison twice now at only age 25, and in between his two prison sentences he stole my family's boat, did huge amounts of cocaine off it, set it on fire, and literally was in an armed standoff with the Coast Guard on our burning boat until they shot him. He survived and is now in prison again.

All of that.....because he wanted....to hold hands....for two minutes.....with a girl 3 months younger than him, and it was "assault".

 

I am sorry but you cannot be serious? You realize that this guy, like anybody else, is responsible for HIS actions. Plenty of people go to jail, sometimes for things they haven't done, it doesn't mean they end up raping children, robbing boats and shooting at police officers. Nobody made him do those things, let alone the poor girl from years ago. Honestly I would be unwilling to believe that someone who do end up being a rapist/pedophile and try and commit attempted murder on Coast guards didn't do more than try to hold hands (maybe at times you weren't able to see, and again, since you just blamed the entirety of his crimes on this one incident, I would be highly unwilling to trust your judgment either in such cases), but even if he did and was wrongly convicted as a sex offender, it by no means justify what he did later and which could have easily been avoided, and that's the one fact you seem to lack to grasp, HAD HE ASKED FOR CONSENT. Had he asked this girl if he could hold hands, she could have said no (or yes) and this whole thing would have been avoided. Instead, he didn't ask for consent, invaded her space (and it doesn't matter that holding hands may seem ridiculous to you, but as someone with a history of sexual assault, I can guarantee you that someone I don't want holding my hand, holding my hand can be as triggering as someone touching my butt or shoving their hand down my pants and is also not okay) and he paid a high price. It's unfortunate, but instead of learning about consent, he did what you seem so keen on doing and blamed it on the girl and went on a crime rampage instead.

He ruined his own life, and with it apparently the life of plenty other of innocent folks too. So it's interesting you focus on what you perceive as a false testimony and how it affected this guy (or more so, how he let it affect him) instead of focusing on the fact that this guy did turn out to be a rapist and pedophile (and no, plenty of people, including here on EC happen to be older than him and haven't ever had sex or are struggling getting a relationship and aren't out there raping 13yo due to desperation) and ruined other people's life.

I agree with @Chip, that your perception of what is okay and not okay is extremely biased in quite a dangerous way, probably due to the fact you also have had people break your own boundaries a lot from what I have got from a lot of your former posts as well as past interactions, so your perception of healthy consensual interactions/sex is most certainly skewed as a result and having been used to not ask for consent and not getting much rejection/fight back for it will naturally make you feel validated in your choice not to ask for consent, but is absolutely not a good indicator and do not make it okay at all.

Consent is only a vibe killer if you fear hearing no.

As a lesbian who dates women (unfortunately too many who have gone through sexual assaults) I can guarantee you that women, DO KNOW what they want and do want to be asked for consent. They might not dare say that because society has always taught women not to ask for what they want and most certainly not express what they don't want (especially to and with men) but consent matter to us and has NEVER been a vibe killer. When I did date/had sex with men, it did feel that way, but not because it was killing the vibe for me, it never did. But because men made it feel like asking for consent was a chore and was killing the vibe for them. Asking ME if I wanted to have sex with them was a chore TO THEM and something that would kill the vibe FOR THEM. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about why consent is important and why there is purposefully this cliche that consent is a vibe killer (and I'll have you acknowledge that I have never ever personally heard a woman say such a thing as ''consent is a vibe killer" in my life, only men), I don't know what will.

If consent kills the vibe of sex for you, ask yourself why?

I have lots of good, passionate, spontaneous sex, and they ALL involve consent. It takes two seconds to check in, and it doesn't need to be a big speech but a " is that okay with you?"/ '' I can stop if..." as you initiate sex or want to implement something new, checking in with your partner etc... Personally knowing that the person I have sex with is as into it as I am is a turn on. Why wouldn't it be for you? Or anyone for that matter. Anyone who can't be bothered to ask for consent because they would ''lose their erection'' shouldn't be having sex.

Some of my worst sex (though maybe the people I had sex with will disagree) was with people who didn't ask for consent and checked in, they probably assumed they were doing it good or that they knew better than me what to do to my body or how to read me but it wasn't the case and because I have a history of sexual abuse/assault I wasn't always comfortable telling them off/stopping what was going on.

When you impose yourself on someone (and I am not talking about flirting, but you said you kiss and touch people without asking for consent) you remove their ability to object to what you do to their body. You pretty much let them know that their comfort and body autonomy is less important than your boner and attraction to their body/them. There is no reason why you can't ask someone if you can kiss them before you do and definitely nowhere where it would be okay (or legal) to touch someone without their consent. Because you do it and haven't gotten many/any complaints isn't good enough. Most women who get rape don't prosecute or go to the police nor complain. That doesn't make them any less scared and raped. SO PLEASE for the sake of everyone involved and so you don't participate in creating more situations where guys (or women) get in wrong and end up prosecuted and where women (or men) end up being raped or with unnecessary trauma, stop advocating for people going for what they want, carelessly without checking in and to just do it on the basis that body language speaks for itself.
You are on EC at least as much as me, we have both seen countless of threads of OPs who are SURE their crush is in love with them, is flirting with them, wants them and more often than not it is NOT even remotely the case and there isn't actually ANYTHING that indicates that or would warrant believing that's the case. People see what they want to see when they like someone and it's easy to misinterpret friendliness or someone natural flirtiness for an invitation to go further. The only way to know if someone likes you is by asking, it's not and has never been by assuming and also have nothing to do with whether someone is going along with it and having sex with you (as someone who identify as a gay man but has been with plenty of women, surely you are the prime example? As am I). Lack of refusal doesn't equal consent.
So please be mindful of the advises you give when the results could be disastrous for both parties involved if they do end up following them.




As for the OP:

It is clear to me that this guy is very likely to be closeted and suffering from internal homophobia but that doesn't make what he does okay. He can believe whatever he wants and may believe ''gay jokes'' are hilarious but it doesn't stop you for standing up for yourself and telling him off if you feel he is being disrespectful and overstepping boundaries. His beliefs/sense of humor don't trump your right to not be harassed and subject to homophobic comments (even if not directly targeted at you) on a regular basis.

 

I possibly should have included it in the response, but his original innocence and total railroading by the justice system wasn't even a question at the time. The girl wasn't blamed because we knew she didn't do anything. My friend was basically the only black male teenager in the town (10,000 people, and there were maybe 3 black families total) and the girls parents were mad a black guy touched their white daughter. The judge was also extremely well known to be super racist to the point of being a former KKK member in the 50's. So yeah, my friend got totally steamrolled by everyone, the entire town knew it, and nobody cared except me and a couple others. Obviously what he did afterwards was the wrong way to handle it, but I can't really fully blame him for everything after seeing his entire life fall apart and him becoming a social pariah in a matter of days.

 

Sexual Assault, indecent touching and/or touching without consent/permission happen in real life. And @Destin unfortunately despite "your heavily jaded views/opinions" on the matter it is true that a majority of people who under sexual assault in life would classify it as demeaning, shameful and painful too. We are not trying to diminish what happened to your friend, but it does seem that you were trying to classify what happened to the OP and what happens to most people as "nothing" which is painful for people who have been unfortunate to have been assaulted, like me. Perhaps you didn't mean it, or what happened to your friend came to the forefront of your mind and you wanted to point out that there are cases where sexual assault isn't really what happened and the victim isn't the victim. But I wish you thought twice about what you were posting here, since unfortunately your words didn't come out that way. They echoed accusatory tones.

I was sexually assaulted, bullied and my dignity and confidence were stripped on two separate occasions, once in a public place filled with 60 of my fellow students at college, when despite me saying no, under the guise of a freshman hazing ritual, I was stripped by a group of boys aged 18-20 in front of girls and boys of similar ages alike to my tiny underwear and forced among tears of humiliation, anger and indignation to dance to a bollywood song for everyone's entertainment. No one recognized it for what it was at that time, no one supported me, no one came forward as a witness and it was pushed under the carpet. I had to see my abusers everyday at college till they graduated.

The second time was last year, when I was stalked after a casual date, I found the guy on a dating app. He stalked me on social media, used my contact info to discover where I lived , where I worked and continued to harass me for weeks, forcing me to "pleasure" him and demeaning me, using my desperation against me, as he threatened to out me to my family, friends, co-workers, neighbors and society in general by posting naked pictures of me and out me a homosexual if I didn't take care of his needs. I ultimately came out of the situation and due to lack of empathy in my country, fought, used the help of police and got the guy for cyber-stalking.

Sure, my experiences might be very different from what the OP or from you described happened to your friend. But the underlying message I wanted to say was that sexual assault is not right. It is inexcusable. I understand what happened to your friend was wrong among the circumstances, but please choose your words carefully. You have come across as throwing everyone under one umbrella. And heavily jaded opinions or not, it hurt reading what you wrote. I will stop here, since I don't want to get into an argument with anyone. I don't want to de-rail this thread.

@Adymoe I apologize for including my experiences here and de-railing your thread a bit. Please do think over whatever all of us posted here and let us know what your thoughts are so we can know what is going on around in your mind. Take care.

 

Who you should blame (if I may) is the racist American judicial system that allow (potential) false report on POC to be prosecuted without proof and get maximum penalty, this is the prejudiced American system who screw up your friend but he still is responsible for his actions and it still would have been avoided had he asked for consent to touch the person in the first place, even if just her hand.

Asking for consent might seem like a pain in the butt to some but it allows to make sure the chances of you ever getting a lawsuit is close to nil. Yes some people will still make up false claims against individuals (men and women) BUT you have a much stronger defense when you know you have never touched someone in ANY way without consent than when you end up having to declare in front of a jury saying “ yes I did grab her hand without asking, and yes I guess I did kiss her without asking but no I didn’t rape her.”
Consent protects you but it also ensure that everyone is comfortable with what’s happening.
It’s also good to assume that everyone you interact with is potentially a survivor of sexual assault and that you don’t know their trigger. Again hand holding might mean nothing to some but be a total trigger for someone else, that’s why consent is paramount, because not everyone has the same boundaries and level of comfort when it comes to physical contact.

 

He definitely seems closeted, whether gay or bi, based on your descriptions of his behavior. Having been religiously closeted myself for many years, the telltale signs are pretty obvious to me. My concern for you is that he is using you as an outlet for his suppressed feelings. Are you attracted to him? The reason I ask is that he seems to be behaving like someone who knows you like him and is toying with you.

When I was closeted and I knew a guy liked me, I would sometimes jokingly flirt as a way of saying "I know you want me but you're never going to have me." I would basically use the guy's interest as an ego boost, and in a weird way jokingly flirting was a way for me to entertain being gay while at the same time reinforcing to myself that it would never happen and that I was above it.

I never went as far as he did with kissing and touching, though, so it's possible that he's interested in you. But whatever his motivations, I question if this is truly a healthy dynamic for you. Good friendships don't typically involve high sexual tension, which is seems you two have. Moreover, the fact that you are hiding your sexuality from him and him from you (potentially) does not bode well for your own peace of mind in your interactions with him.

You might consider broadening your social network a bit so that you are not too reliant on him as a friend, especially if his physical advances make you uncomfortable. On the other hand, if you're attracted to him, maybe something could happen between you two? But considering his religious indoctrination, that could be a recipe for disaster for both of you. Whatever you do, I think it would be wise to proceed with caution.

 

To me, he seems like he's having some issues with internalized homophobia. I would definitely be careful if you want to pursue some kind of relationship with him though, because from my experience, people with internalized homophobia when they are some kind of LGBTQ+ in sexual orientation can be the most dangerous homophobes.

 

Nothing wrong with supporting him in his journey, so long as you don’t feel disrespected or weighted down by him. Good for you for coming out to him despite his negative comments about gay people. Maybe you can be a role model to him that it’s ok to accept your sexuality the way it is. Poor guy. “I must be straight because [blank]” who says that?

 

So, are you into your friend?